


Wishverse 04 - Cyberwoman Reloaded

by Soledad



Series: If Wishes Were Horses (Wishverse) [4]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Actions Have Consequences (at least here), Canon-Typical Violence, Episode rewrite: s1.04 - Cyberwoman, F/M, Heavy-Duty Gwen Bashing, Original Dialogue In Different Context, So very AU, The Many Departures of Gwen Cooper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 19:13:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7696021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soledad/pseuds/Soledad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many different ways to get rid of Gwen Cooper, while keeping the episodes as canonical as possible, including a great deal of original dialogue. A writing experiment. Not for Gwen-fans, obviously.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wishverse 04 - Cyberwoman Reloaded

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this is a very different approach than the previous ones. I don’t know why these parts write themselves so differently, but here you are.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**EPISODE 04 – CYBERWOMAN RELOADED**

**TAKE ONE – UPGRADED**

Down in the storeroom Gwen was facing off the Cyberwoman who walked around her and to the side with the regal posture of the funeral statues of an Egyptian pharaoh. She – _it_ was beautiful and frightening and absolutely repulsive at the same time; something beyond human weakness… beyond understanding, compassion, need, love… beyond everything that would make a once human being at least _humane_.

Gwen pointed her gun at the slowly moving figure with a trembling hand.

“Whatever you… whoever you are… I don’t mean you any harm.” Even in her own eyes, it sounded ridiculous. As if she _could_ have harmed the creature, even if she wanted to. She felt the panic rising in her guts rapidly. “But come any closer and I’ll shoot!” she threatened.

The Cyberwoman didn’t reply. She – _it_ – tightened the walking circle around Gwen. Gwen shot. Once. Twice. Three times.

The Cyberwoman staggered as the bullets hit her – _its_ – body but kept coming. After the fourth shot, she – _it_ – knocked the gun out of Gwen’s suddenly nerveless hand and grabbed her around the neck, choking her and manoeuvring her towards the steel table in the middle of the room.

Gwen screamed on the top of her lungs. “Let me gooo!”

“Do not struggle,” the mechanical voice of the Cyberwoman replied, while she was pushed onto the table and secured to it. “You will be like me. I will eliminate all human weakness in you.”

The table tilted back flat. The Cyberwoman secured Gwen’s head in place with clamps, then finally released her neck. Gwen stared with wide-eyed fear at the cyber-conversion unit above her. The Cyberwoman pushed a button. Currents began to run through the metal table. Gwen’s screams rose an octave.

At this moment Jack burst into the room with a large gun in hand, shouting at the Cyberwoman to surrender. She – _it_ – turned around and headed for Jack, ready to kill him. Jack, only now realizing that he was facing a woman (or what _used_ to be a woman anyway) just stared for a moment, absolutely stunned.

Until Gwen’s screams jerked him back to reality. But when he raised his gun to shoot, Ianto came in running, pushing him away. He missed the Cyberwoman, hitting the water pipes instead. He pushed Ianto back, angrily.

“You’re fighting the wrong guy!” he shouted.

On the ceiling, the centre of the conversion unit opened, and mechanical arms – like the tentacles of some bizarre, robotic octopus – began to lower.

“Get me out of here!” Gwen screamed. “Someone, please!”

The two men turned and let go of each other, running over to help her.

“Switch it off!” Gwen begged.

Ianto pushed the button with a familiarity that would have been suspicious, had anyone had the time to pay attention to his actions. Nothing happened.

“She’s changed all the circuits!” he called over to Jack, punching the unit frantically. “I can’t switch it off! We’ll have to shut off the power everywhere.”

“Tosh!” Jack shouted through his headset. “Cut all power in the base!”

“If I do that, the base goes into lockdown!” Tosh protested. “We’ll be trapped.”

“And if you don’t, we’ll be facing _two_ Cybermen in no time,” Jack shouted. “Do it, dammit!”

The machinery was moving closer and closer to Gwen, who kept begging and screaming. “Switch it off! Please, switch it off!”

Elsewhere, under the Hub, Toshiko ran to the main power switch and pulled the lever down. Nothing happened.

“Jack!” she cried. “It doesn’t work!”

“What?” Jack couldn’t believe it. “It’s impossible!”

“I’m sorry,” Toshiko replied. “I have no idea what happened. A circuit must have been overloaded somewhere. I’ll run a diagnostic…”

“Hurry up!” Jack’s voice was barely audible over Gwen’s horrible screams.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
Fifteen minutes later main power was finally cut, and Toshiko called again.

“Jack?” I’ve repaired the broken circuit.”

Jack looked down at Gwen’s shredded face. It was implanted with bits of metal – her eyes and ears were replaced, and a piece of pipe was sticking out of her head. Next to the table Ianto was sitting on the floor, cradling the lifeless body of the Cyberwoman, whose head had been caught in the machinery and torn off, crying silently. His clothes were caked with blood.

“It’s too late, Tosh,” Jack said tiredly, “but thank you anyway. What caused the system failure?”

“Ummm… actually, it was Gwen’s electronic hair-curler,” Toshiko replied, “She’s plugged it into the socket on her workstation. Seems it was broken; it short-circuited the entire wiring, right down to the main power switch.”

Jack sighed heavily. They’d told Gwen a dozen times _not_ to connect any household tools to _any_ of the sockets within the Hub because the power system was really _sensitive_. One faulty tool could have sent the entire base into lockdown, and in a potentially hostile situation that would have been lethal – and not for Torchwood alone. They were responsible for the entire city, after all.

Yet apparently, Gwen wasn’t listening. And while Jack might have to execute Ianto for hiding a Cyberwoman in their very basement, or at least Retcon him back to nursery school, in case he felt generous, at least for _Gwen’s_ death he was not responsible.

Which was preciously small comfort, considering all the horror they had just gone through… and the clean-up they were still facing.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  
**TAKE TWO – CONNECTED**

Gwen and Owen were kissing passionately in the morgue cabinet. Deadly peril usually made Owen horny; so horny that he didn’t even care who the woman was he snogged – it might be the last time, after all, and when she was willing, which she very obviously was, why should he miss the opportunity?

The Cyberwoman’s heavy footsteps could be heard outside the cabinet. She – _it_ – began to tear open the cabinet doors methodically, one by one, and then slamming them shut again when they turned out to be empty. Gwen lifted her head abruptly, clunking against the top of the drawer. Owen suppressed and angry hiss. He knew their hiding place would be discovered, sooner or later – all they could do was to stay _very_ quiet and hope that something or someone would distract the homicidal cyborg in time for them to escape.

The plan would have been a weak one, even under ideal circumstances. Gwen’s mobile phone starting to ring was, however, not part of it. Hell, with that noise – and given the acute hearing of cyborgs – they could have climbed out of there and surrendered right away. Dammit, but she _never_ really listened, did she? All Torchwood members had been told for once and forever to keep their goddamn phones in silent mode, set to vibration. That way, they could pick up any calls, but not reveal their positions. Why couldn’t the stupid woman listen?

Gwen shimmied on top of Owen, to get her phone. Which would have been moderately nice in any other situation, because hey! full body contact!, but at the given moment, the only thing Owen could feel was panic. Especially since Gwen was unable to find her own damn phone – seriously, couldn’t she do _anything_ right?

“Where is it?” she whimpered, pawing herself and even Owen occasionally in the process. “Where can it be? Owen, can you feel it anywhere? Quickly, please!”

Owen swore a blue streak under his breath. This was _not_ how he liked to feel up a woman – any woman, even if it was Gwen Cooper. He felt around her and finally found it in the back pocket of her pants. He took it out and gave it to her.

“Turn it off!” he whispered frantically. “Turn it off, dammit!”

Unfortunately, Gwen was so scared that she dropped the damn thing, which slid backwards in the cabinet.

“Shit!” Owen opened the door and slipped out quickly. There was no reason to try hiding anymore. “Gwen, get out of here, dammit, before that thing finds us. And turn finally off that fucking phone!”

They almost made it out. Had Gwen not dropped the phone again, they’d actually have made it. But she wasted precious moments on the useless thing that should have been muted in the first place, and those moments were enough for the Cyberwoman to reach her, grab her neck and slam her into the wall like a rag doll. The sickening _crunch_ of her skull could be clearly heard, even from that distance.

“Could you not _listen_ , just once?” Owen screamed, grabbing a long screwdriver from the autopsy instrument tray and stabbing the Cyberwoman in the exposed stomach.

It stopped the thing long enough for the others to arrive with the more efficient weapons. But for Gwen Cooper, it was already too late.

“You really should have listened,” Owen murmured, hauling her broken body back into the morgue cabinet. He’d do the autopsy later; not that there would have been any doubt about the cause of death, but rules were rules. “Just this one fucking time, you should have listened.”

~The End – for now~

**Author's Note:**

> I originally planned this as a three-parter, but I run out of ideas for the time being. I might add the third part later.


End file.
